You're not the boss of me now

LATELY, we've been hearing a lot about women and "bossiness." There is this entire movement, spearheaded by first lady Michelle Obama and noted third-wave feminist Beyonce, to ban the use of the word "bossy" in connection with young women, since it's somehow supposed to stunt their growth as proud, independent human beings.

Personally, I'm not so sure about that. As the oldest of five kids, three of whom were strong-willed boys, I was on the receiving end of "bossy" for a good two decades and it certainly didn't stop me from becoming opinionated. If we give a word too much power, we surrender our ability to speak truth to it. More important, this crusade to bubble wrap little girls and protect them from the realities of life (as in, not everyone is going to love them as much as Mommy and Daddy) tends to create big girls who cry sexism at the drop of a front page Inquirer headline.

Of course, I'm referring to Kathleen Kane or, as she's usually described in news reports, "the first female Democrat ever to be elected as attorney general in the commonwealth." That's a mouthful, but it's not as bitter as the mumbo jumbo served up by Madame General over the past few days.

On Sunday, the Inquirer had a cover story about how Kane dropped the investigation begun by her predecessor into some corrupt Pennsylvania politicians. Critics of the investigation called it fatally flawed and incapable of prosecution since, among other things, it allegedly involved the targeting of African-American politicians in the statehouse. That led Kane to dig deeply into her portfolio of excuses and pull out the "racist" card, suggesting that the color of the targets' skin was prima facie evidence that the sting was unconstitutional. The fact that the supervising prosecutors vehemently deny that they went after politicians of a predetermined melanin level is beside the point. The "first female Democrat ever to be elected as attorney general of the commonwealth" thinks that she wouldn't be able to pull down any convictions, and therefore deep-sixed the operation.

The racism allegation really annoyed me when I first heard it over the weekend. If a group of people commit a criminal act, even if you could view that act as "entrapment," the amount of melanin in their skin is irrelevant. After all, ethics are color blind. I remember when some people criticized the grand-jury indictments against priests as being anti-Catholic, and while I understood their point, given the glee with which the investigation was conducted, it's hard to say that an investigation into priestly sexual abuse is an investigation against Roman Catholics.

But the racism claim didn't annoy me as much as what followed the next day, when Kane announced to the world that those who criticized her handling of the sting were members of the "Good Old Boys Network" and that she was a victim of (here it comes) sexism.

Boo (you gotta be kidding me) hoo. "Seriously?" I wanted to say to no one in particular. The "first female Democrat ever to be elected as attorney general in the commonwealth" is going to go all Gloria Steinem on us now and wail about how anyone who has a legitimate concern about her possibly mishandling an important investigation for pure political reasons is just a member of the genus "maleus chauvinistus piggus." I really could not believe my ears.

Kane has shown herself to have very thin skin in the past, refusing to take questions at press conferences and acting as if she didn't owe anyone anything more than a canned performance, but this was taking it to an entirely new level.

Madame General needs to understand this: Criticizing someone's executive decisions is not only legitimate, it is necessary when that person happens to be the chief law-enforcement officer in the state. There is absolutely no obligation that the tone of the criticism be gentle, measured or even nonpartisan. Kathleen Kane is a big girl who knew exactly what she was getting into when she ran for attorney general, and parlayed her experience, her husband's money, her sterling connections and her novelty as a woman into a high-profile job. For her to now go begging for the smelling salts as a victim of sexism is disrespectful to the rest of us who don't try and hide behind 1970s rhetoric when faced with a less-than-stellar job performance.

I wonder what Queen Bey would have to say about a woman who thinks it's perfectly OK to blame legitimate criticism of her discretionary actions on sexism. I wonder if Mrs. Obama would think that taking refuge in archaic platitudes and misguided excuses is preferable to being traumatized by the "bossy" word. I wonder when we'll stop talking about the "first woman to do this," particularly when "this" is a mediocre job.

And I wonder when Kathleen Kane will learn that competence is gender neutral.